The Dead Butcher and His Fiend Like Queen

Although a great majority of the time, power corrupts decisions, it also can have a positive effect on choices. In the play Macbeth, one character who keeps in mind what is best for the people is Malcolm. As the son of King Duncan, Malcolm has virtuous morals and realizes that Macbeth is only in it for power instead of thinking of what is best for the people of Scotland. Malcolm makes a choice to fight back with the help of England. His choice to fight for power, although used violence against Macbeth, was a positive decision because he was thinking of the people and his father's legacy. His success is shown when he and Macduff defeat Macbeth and Malcolm is named the new king. He exclaims to his people, “[w]e shall not spend a large expense of time/ before we reckon with your several loves/ and make us even with you” (5.8.72-4). Only seconds after being named king, Malcolm is thinking of how he will reward his people. This proves

After decades of collected prose and literary works, the nature of evil has been reintroduced through bombast and pomposity words, much like those found in Macbeth and Beowulf. These two masterpieces have set the standard not only for dark literature, but also for malevolent characters. While Macbeth and Grendel may have lived hundreds of years apart and do have many differences, both are characterized by evil traits such as naive ambition, rapacious guilt, and genuine immorality. These fatalistic and malicious characters expose that any man, or creature, has the potential to ultimately become an evil and commanding oppressor, completely disregarding the essential qualities of human

"This dead butcher and his fiend like queen"(V.viii.80) is the way Malcolm describes Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.  The characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth changed considerably during the course of the play, Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare.  In the beginning of the play, Macbeth is seen as a courageous soldier who is loyal to the King.  As the play progresses, Macbeth is corrupted by the witches’ prophecies and by his and Lady Macbeth’s ambition. Because of the weakness of Macbeth’s character and the strength of Lady Macbeth’s character, Lady Macbeth is able to easily influence him.  Lady Macbeth pushes Macbeth toward evil at first, but after he realizes what he has done, it is his decision to

Despite his fearless character in battle, Macbeth is concerned by the prophecies of the Witches, and his thoughts remain confused, both before, during, and after his murder of King Duncan. When Duncan announces that he intends the kingdom to pass to his son Malcolm, Macbeth appears frustrated. When he is about to commit the murder, he undergoes terrible pangs of conscience. Macbeth is at his most human and considerate when his masculinity is ridiculed and degraded by his wife. However, Macbeth has resolved himself into a far more stereotypical villain and asserts his manliness over that of his wife. His ambition now begins to spur him toward further horrible deeds, and he starts to disregard and even to challenge fate. Nevertheless, the newfound resolve causes Macbeth to move onward.

Macduff talks to the land of Scotland about Macbeth. He talks about how he should build himself up because the good people are afraid to stand up to Macbeth. He also says Macbeth should enjoy everything he has stolen because his title is safe. What he is saying is the people of Scotland are scared of him and don't want to stand up to him. Macduff knows Macbeth doesn't deserve the crown he wears on his head. Macbeth is a cruel ruler to the country of Scotland. Macduff uses his frustration about Macbeth getting the crown as a technique to get Malcolm to help fight.

When Macbeth is slain, Malcolm sees it as a fresh start to the country. All the people who had to flee may now return. He intends to reward everyone who stood by him. "We shall not spend a large expense of time before we reckon with your several loves." Throughout the play Malcolm has shown himself to be loyal and fair and shows the qualities of a good king.

Parenthesis are used in this case to add an extra piece of information that has been forgotten about or is more of an afterthought in the speech. Because the suicide of Lady macbeth is included in the parenthesis, it is implied that Malcolm has deemed unimportant and therefore discarded the importance Lady Macbeth in the entire plot. This shows that women are disregarded when speaking about corruption. Malcolm was speaking about the corruption Macbeth had committed and that he was now defeated, but when Lady Macbeth was mentioned, it was to show her fate, completely unrelated to the end of the unfair rule that the Macbeths had imposed. Another part of Malcolm’s statement that is important is the order the Macbeths were mentioned in and how they were mentioned. Macbeth was mentioned first at the name of a “dead butcher” which implies that he slaughtered men as a butcher would to animals. This shows that he was blamed for the majority of the damage done. When Lady macbeth is mentioned, it is by the name of “his fiend-like queen”. The use of the possessive “his” shows that Lady Macbeth was, again mentioned more as an afterthought and a “sidekick” to macbeth rather than the mastermind of the whole

In extent Malcolm is referring to Macbeth as the “dead butcher” and to Lady Macbeth as “his fiend-like queen.” A butcher in the use of this play is a person who kills showing no regret for their actions or reason for the killings. The fiend as Lady Macbeth is to say she is very evil and has no morals, able to bend other’s wills to equal her own giving them a confused air of what they really want. On the other hand to say Macbeth was always a butcher is an unfair evaluation of him, as it doesn’t reflect the views that the whole of Scotland had at the beginning of the play. Fiend is a brilliant way to describe Lady Macbeth as she is the one who initially introduced the feeling of evil into the play and into Macbeth leading him to commit the

Lady Macbeth Is A Fiend - Like Queen In William Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" the audience sees two very different sides of Lady Macbeth. At the start of the play Lady Macbeth is shown to be ruthless, conniving, fiend-like and remorseless. The phrase fiend-like conjures up an image of a cruel, evil and wicked person. In the play the audience sees that Lady Macbeth has a lust for power.

After hearing the prophecy that he will become king, Macbeth resolves to leave his future up to fate proving his pride and prestige are very important to him. Once he is told of Malcolm being named successor to the throne, Macbeth decides that if he is going to reach his goal he cannot leave it up to luck. Again Macbeth’s resolve to murder Duncan wavers when he leaves the grand banquet to assess his situation and decide whether he wants to proceed. His arguments include wishing to keep his honor and not kill Duncan for Duncan is there ‘in double trust’. Thus, Macbeth is shown to be clinging to his honor. Finally, Macbeth must stand his ground one last time against his wife who uses tact to emasculate Macbeth. In his final attempt to stop the whole ordeal before it can start Macbeth tells Lady Macbeth that he does not want to ‘cast aside’ the honor he has just recently received. Unfortunately, Lady Macbeth will have none of what her husband is saying and so convinces Macbeth to follow through with his plan of murdering King Duncan. Hence, the audience is given the first example of how powerful selfish motives are and how quickly they can spread to others along with cause them to perform unthinkable

With the visit to King Duncan, the King announces that his son Malcolm will be heir to the throne. In Macbeth’s mind, all he can think about is murdering the King and all that will come along with it. Macbeth sends a letter to his wife telling of all that has happened and to prepare for the King’s visit. In order to keep the murder in her mind she doesn’t want anything to get in her way, so she even goes to the point of seeking evil and not wanting to be a women-afraid of the feminine ways which will interfere in the murder. When Lady Macbeth says, “Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood; (I v ll. 44-47) it shows how far Lady Macbeth is willing to go to make sure her husband and herself gets to the top. She even goes to the point to call upon the spirits to unsex her and fill her with cruelty to make sure that here feminine ways don’t cause the plan to go wrong.

Throughout reading the play, Macbeth changes a lot from being a man of loyalty and honesty, to a man of whom is power hungry and greedy. This shows how the more power you receive the more power you want; which in many cases, such as this one leads to destruction. Many of the choices that Macbeth made were influenced by the power that he had, and this power began to take over him. This then lead to greed and destruction of not only others, but himself as well.

John Charles Bucknill wrote, “He discovers that Lady Macbeth is the mock fortitude of a mind deluded by ambition. She shames her husband by a superhuman audacity of fancy which she cannot support, but sinks in the season of remorse,

In Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, the following statement can be applied, “Macbeth is a butcher and Lady Macbeth is a fiend-like queen.” This is a true statement as many occurrences involving Macbeth and Lady Macbeth portray them in this way. A butcher can be defined as someone who kills or has people killed needlessly or brutally. The term butcher used in this way describes Macbeth to some extent. During the play, Macbeth is involved in the murder of many people, including King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff’s wife and children. A fiend can be described as a very wicked or cruel person, or one who causes mischief and annoyance. This can be applied to Lady Macbeth, who had only her own intentions at heart. On many occasions Lady Macbeth

King Duncan has been invited into Macbeth’s home, to dine and enjoy himself. He expects to have a great time and is ridiculously thankful, yet what makes this ironic is the fact that the hostess that he is praising is conspiring to kill him-he will be murdered that night. This represents the duplicitous nature of Macbeth, as the outward nobility of his character is contrasted greatly to his true spirit.